


A Hero's Spirit

by crappyfriend



Category: RWBY
Genre: Adventure, Ghosts, Some changes to canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:41:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25953913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crappyfriend/pseuds/crappyfriend
Summary: Ruby had never liked the idea of ghosts. They couldn't interact with anyone or anything. What kind of existence was that?And you can imagine her surprise when on a field trip to Beacon ended up with her meeting the ghost of a long-dead hero.One that needed her help.
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

When Ruby walked out of the airship with all the other Signal students, she couldn't help but stare at how big Beacon was. The brochures and dad's stories never talked about how enormous it was. They could fit Patch in here and still have some room to spare.

She tried to calm herself as they gathered at the entrance to the school of her dreams.

A tall man with wild green hair stood there and he looked kind of familiar. She might have seen her in a photo at home. The man didn't waste any time and spoke before all of them were even there. He spoke loud enough for her to hear him even though she was far away, but she had to concentrate to even understand it. 

"Good morning prospective students. My name is Dr Oobleck and a teacher at Beacon academy. I see that you all made it here without problems and I hope you're ready for a tour of the school you will be joining in two years. Let's go on to our first destination." Oobleck said all that in what felt like a second before he sped towards the school at a speed that rivalled Ruby's semblance.

The group went from one place to another at almost full sprint. They only stopped shortly for Dr Oobleck to give short, but a detailed explanation about each place.

Ruby had to stop and catch her breath once they had listened to thirty different explanations. She wasn't the only one who had to and Oobleck was nice enough to talk about the place for longer than a minute.

They had stopped at a large statue. She did her best to listen as she enjoyed her small break.

"The statue before you are of Jaune Arc, the one in a full suit of armour and Celine Adele, the one with the axe. They are considered the first modern huntsmen and led a group that served as a base for what Beacon and other schools would base their curriculum on when they were founded. It was-" Oobleck continued, but Ruby had lost the energy to listen. How could someone talk so fast, was it his semblance?

At least she managed to absorb some of the stuff he said that she wanted to find more information about it later.

"I just need a little more time." Ruby was about to lean against the statue when she heard the sound of metal on metal. 

It was like someone had decided to walk around in a full suit of armour and Ruby looked up to see where the sound came from. There was no one around here that could have made the sound and no one reacted as they heard it either. 

Ruby thought she might have imagined the sound until it came again and was louder than the first time. The sound clearly came from the other side of the statue this time. Once again, no one seemed to have noticed the sound.

Not a single person even glanced in the direction of the sound.

When it happened a third time with no reaction she walked around the statue to find out for herself. She went to the other side of the statue and found nothing. There wasn't much time to wonder what had made that sound before she had to turn back around as Oobleck yelled out.

"That should be enough time for a break. Let's go as we are not even halfway through the tour and there is still much to see." The sound of what had to be the entire group running was heard and by the time Ruby made it back everyone was gone.

She couldn't see them anywhere and she had no clue which direction she went. Ruby couldn't use her scroll to contact anyone in the group since none of the few friends she had wanted to join the tour. The school was too big her to look even with her semblance and it was a holiday, so there was no one near her she could ask.

The only thing she could do was wait here and hope that they would eventually come back.

"He could at the very least have made sure everyone was there before he left." She grumbled.

"Finally he's gone." An unknown voice came from behind her accompanied by the same metal on metal sound. "I swear that the guy only gets faster every year."

She turned around quickly to ask them why they made those sounds but couldn't utter a word as she laid eyes upon them. 

She couldn't even say what gender they were as they were covered in a suit of armour that covered them from head to toe. The armour was covered in all kinds of damage from what had to be bullets, swords and claws at first glance. There were splotches of red on their armour that smelled like blood. Mixed in with the smell was the scent of gunpowder and Fire Dust.

A hole the size of her fist was on their stomach and went all the way through to the other side. That was only what she could see though as the rest of them seemed to be stuck inside the statue.

She only stood there as she couldn't understand if she had somehow collapsed from exhaustion earlier. Maybe this was just a nightmare that she only needed to wake up from.

That was what she thought at least until they turned towards her. They tilted their head at her.

"Can you see me?" They said in surprise.

And Ruby felt like that was her cue to run as she used her semblance to get as far away as possible. Who knew what a monster like that would do.

Only a small part of her wondered why the monster and the statue looked so similar.


	2. Chapter 2

Ruby wasn't certain where she wanted to run to, maybe she would run into someone that could explain what she saw. Was it a hallucination, a new type of Grimm or someone that used their semblance to mess with her. 

There wasn't much time to think about what that was as she heard the metallic sound once again. She dared to look back and saw the monster from earlier only a few meters from her. Her fight or flight instinct flared up at the sight of them and her body automatically chose flight as it rushed inside the school.

She preferred a horde of Grimm to whatever that was.

Exhaustion had started to set in and the creature had only gotten closer. Ruby had to decide if she wanted to fight back at this point. She took one last look back at them before Ruby turned around with her weapon in rifle mode and found...

Nothing.

The creature had disappeared from her sight the second it took for her to turn around, but she hadn't let down her guard. She could still hear and smell them.  
Ruby scanned her surroundings for any sign of them but found nothing, as the sound gradually disappeared. She waited for what felt like minutes before she finally let herself relax a little.

"Finally you stopped running." The monster's voice sent shivers down her spine as it came from behind her. "I just want to talk?"

Ruby unfolded her weapon into scythe form as she spun around and slashed at the creature. Only for the weapon to go right through them and long cut in the wall behind them.

"Could you calm down a little!" The creature looked behind them at the damage Ruby had caused. "If I wasn't already dead then that would have seriously hurt."

The damage only worsened as the cut started to widen and large parts of the wall she had cut into fell apart. Ruby's despair at the amount of trouble she would be in, distracted her from the reason she did it in the first place.

"Are you okay?" The creature moved closer to her and Ruby brought her weapon up. "Calm down now, we don't want you to start cutting the whole school down."

"What are you?" Ruby fin

"Finally we're getting somewhere." They went down on one knee and introduced themself. "My name is Jaune Arc and I need your help. There is-"

Whatever Jaune was about to say was interrupted by an explosion further down the hallway. A man leapt out of the hole with some sort of blunderbuss-axe weapon. The figure looked in all directions until he spotted Ruby and ran towards her at a speed that didn't fit his physique.

"Don't worry student, Peter Port Huntsman extraordinaire is on the scene." His weapon was pointed at the hole she made. "Now tell me, my dear, where is the danger? Is it Grimm, I thought I had secured the cages properly last night."

"Cages?" Is this guy a teacher? Are all the teacher here like this? "The monster is right in front of you."

"Monster, really, now you're just hurting my feelings." 

"Of course, are we supposed to let them roam free? That would be a lawsuit waiting to happen." Port stepped closer to the hole. "But where is this monster you speak of?"

Port was right in front of Jaune, as he called himself, and acted like he couldn't see him. 

"He is right in front of you." Port stood directly in front of him and didn't seem fazed at all by the sight or smell of him.

"Young lady, there is nothing in front of me." He turned towards her, the bloody knight completely ignored. "Are you sure you saw something? Perhaps you simply imagined it, this exact scenario reminds me of the time I fought a swarm of Lancers in the Mistralian highlands. There I was-"

Port started on a story and as it went on it made less and less sense how it was relevant. How long had he talked about the story at this point, five minutes, ten and hour? Ruby almost fell asleep standing the bloody knight decided to remind her that he was still her

"You know, he's going to talk for hours at this rate if we don't stop him." Even Jaune was sleepy as he finished the sentence with a yawn. "Just tell him you saw a mouse."

Ruby gave him a weird look. How would that get her out of this?

"Trust me." She gave him the same look. "Or not, I know we had our differences. I with the whole scaring you thing and you trying to kill me, but I think we can both agree on the fact that we both want to get this over with."

Ruby reluctantly agreed on that point. Port hadn't even gotten to the part with the Lancers and looked ready to continue the story for who knew how long. It doesn't hurt to try.

"There was a mouse." It sounds so stupid now that she's said it. How is this even supposed to work? "It was huge, covered in blood and looked ready to kill me so I had to fight back. It also stank"

Jaune was so offended by her description of the mouse that Ruby didn't to see his face, but the sudden quiet was so abrupt that she was left confused. Was it that effective?

She looked at Port and saw wide-open eyes with pupils the size of a dot. He looked frantically at the floor and his hands were pale as they held onto his weapon tightly.  
"A mouse, where?!" Port pointed the weapon at random places before he picked her up roughly as he continued to look for the imaginary mouse. "I can't see it and only us two are no match for such a beast. This call for a tactical withdrawal!"

He ran fast as he zigzagged, somersaulted and rolled as far away from that place as possible. Manoeuvres like that might have helped if they were being shot at, but it only made her dizzy.

She could barely see as shapes started to get blurry and she tried her best to keep her breakfast where it belonged.

She felt the cold air as they moved outside and the sound of a door torn off its hinges. A torrent of warm air told her they were back inside and for some reason, there was the sound of gears moving. Where were they even?

Another door was torn off its hinges and the rollercoaster named Peter Port finally stopped as she was put down on a comfy chair. The smell of melted chocolate was in the air and it would have usually been nice, but it made her nauseous with its sweet scent instead. That she was dizzy enough that the room felt like a carousel didn't help.

"Ozpin, we need to sound the alarm! There is a mad beast in Beacon and it needs to be killed at once." His fist hit a desk, or was it a box? "We must not delay for even a second. Who knows how many diseases they could be spreading."

"Peter, how nice of you to show up. I wish you could have been a little gentler with the door," Ozpin spoke in a calm, but measured tone. As if something like this happened often. "Why don't we start from the beginning?"

Port never got to say anything as Ruby had to give up as she could finally not fight back and let it all out. Her vomit came out like a cannon as it sprayed both Ozpin's floor, desk and the man himself. By the time she was done her vision had gone back into focus and she got to see the mess, she had made.

It was not pretty, to say the least.

"It seems we will have to wait until I have cleaned myself up." Ozpin somehow managed to sound as calm as before as he said this. She would have been impressed if she didn't feel so filled with despair.

Ruby had managed to puke all over the headmaster to her favourite school. How can this get any worse?

"Finally caught up to you guys." The smell of blood almost made her puke again. "You got to stop doing this."

She just had to ask.


End file.
